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Annette Lee waits on a customer at Captain Woody’s Bar and Grill. Lee, a special education teacher at Bluffton High School, works two nights a week at the restaurant to help with the cost of child care.
Posted on Mon, Apr. 28, 2008
Teachers take 2nd jobs to help make ends meet
By KELLY VADNEY - kvadney@islandpacket.com
HILTON HEAD — Though Beaufort County’s average teacher salary ranks in the top five in the state, local teachers say they have a tough time covering their expenses.
Many have taken on second, or even third jobs, to keep up with the ever-rising cost of living, particularly in Bluffton and on Hilton Head Island, where housing costs are high.
What the teachers say
• Annette Lee is Beaufort County’s Teacher of the Year and is a special needs teacher at Bluffton High School.
She has been a teacher for eight years and has a master’s degree. But when the 34-year-old mom is not teaching, she is helping at her husband’s pizza restaurant, waiting tables at another restaurant or serving as a kayak guide. Over summer vacations, she works four days a week.
She brings in a salary of $44,089 a year as a teacher. After taxes, medical insurance for her family and other costs, she takes home about $2,000 a month. The additional jobs she works bring in an extra $12,000 a year to cover day care for her two children.
Lee says there have been times when she has thought about leaving the teaching profession.
“I thought about it when I first had my children,” she said. “We lose a lot of good teachers because (of) day care.”
But Lee said her family can’t go without the health insurance that her full-time job provides. Besides, the satisfaction of having an impact on young lives makes her profession worthwhile.
• Lynn Tutuska, a teacher at Hilton Head Island International Baccalaureate Elementary School, works three nights a week at the Sage Room so she can live near North Forest Beach.
“Everything on the island is so much more expensive than off,” she said. “I joke that I do other jobs to support my career.”
She thinks a cost-of-living adjustment for teachers in the Bluffton-Hilton Head area would help. Still, she wouldn’t dream of giving up her teaching job and believes working a second job is something that just comes with her profession.
• Audrey Olmstead, a Bluffton Elementary School teacher who works weekends at a golf course, said: “I think there should be a cost-of-living adjustment. Everything just seems to be a little bit more expensive” in Bluffton and on the island.
• Joe Bills, a Bluffton High School English teacher, works as a bartender, sometimes full time over the summer.
“It comes down to the idea that when I chose to be a teacher I kind of assumed I had to do this,” he said.
What school district officials say:
District spokesman John Williams said the school board has discussed cost-of-living adjustments over the past decade for teachers in the Bluffon-Hilton Head area.
It’s something that never came to pass, he said, in part because of varying opinions on how much costs differ.
Jackie Rosswurm, district human resources officer, said providing cost-of-living adjustments would be difficult.
“I think we need to be very careful. We might have a little bit of difficulty justifying that,” she said. “People choose to live where they want to.”
